Sony Next Gen DVD Recorder Coming Dec.

Sony plans to manufacture a total of 10,000 units of the cutting edge recorders per month in the initial stage.

In comparison, Matsushita will start selling two Blu ray DVD recorders in Japan on November 15.

Osaka based Matsushita has said a recorder able to store 200 gigabytes of data on its hard disk drive would sell for about 240,000 yen and a 500 gigabyte model which can store about 63 hours of terrestrial digital broadcasting for 300,000 yen.

In the United States and Europe, Sony intends to focus on Blu ray players for the time being, and has no concrete plans to launch Blu ray recorders, Nishitani said.

It plans to offer its Blu ray player in the United States this autumn.

SOFTWARE LIBRARY

Nishitani expects 500 or more Blu ray disc software titles to become available in a year, boosting the appeal of Blu ray recorders and players to movie watchers.

Movie and music providers in the Blu-ray group said in August they would offer an initial batch of 75 software titles in Japan, including "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" from Walt Disney and Sony's "The Da Vinci Code."

They said many of the 75 titles will hit stores by the year end.

In the competing HD DVD camp, Toshiba started rolling out its HD DVD players in Japan in March, becoming the first company to offer next generation optical disc players.